Cosmic Collars

I've seen so many Peter Pan collar-style necklaces and so much galaxy print floating around the parts of the internet devoted to fashion lately that they've finally lured me in, and I had to try them out for myself - so I put both of them into one item. And, thus, I present to you:

To make this, you're going to need:

• Leather or faux leather
• Acrylic paint
• Modge Podge
• A punch (or something else to make holes in the leather with)
• 3 jump rings
• A clasp
• A piece of chain

Before you start, find a collar template online or draft your own. For my rounded collar, I drew my own, but for the scalloped one, I went here.

1. Cut out your template from leather/faux leather. I found that the best way to do this (without sticking pins into it) is to use masking tape to stick down the outsides of the template, then cutting through the masking tape.
   
2. Paint your collar pieces black (my leather was already very dark brown, but I painted them black anyway).
   
3. Punch holes in your collar pieces. Make one hole at the front (where the two pieces will join in the centre) and one hole at the back of each collar piece. I used a 2mm punch, but what size you want is up to you.
   
4. Sponge some white acrylic paint onto the collar pieces. I just used a torn-up piece of kitchen sponge for this bit.
   
5. Keep adding various colours, mixing and dabbing them together until you finally get a galaxy look that you're happy with. It's a good idea to have a visual reference for this part, so Google some pictures of galaxies.
   
6. Add a few white dots for stars.
   
7. After the paint is dry, add a layer of Modge Podge to seal it. Wait for the Modge Podge to dry.
   
8. Connect the two collar pieces by putting a jump ring through the two holes in the centre.
   
9. Add some chain to the back of one collar piece.
   
10. Add a lobster clasp to the back of the other collar piece.

And you're done! 

The trickiest part is trying to get the paint to do what you want - galaxies can be pretty frustrating to paint, but it's also a fun challenge.

I also posted this tutorial over on Cut Out + Keep, which you can find over here.